A team of Kiwi Riverman blogs, with a variety of niches. Something globally interesting to write about, every time. Positively influencing the blogesphere.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

The Rainbow Warrior Affair: The Aftermath.

What are old DGSE intelligence officers up to these days? Whatever it is Greenpeace are not happy campers.They claim that a former French intelligence officer who led that despicable attack and bombing of the Greenpeace research ship RAINBOW WARRIOR, in Auckland Harbour, New Zealand, over twenty years ago, now resides in the US where he heads an arms company selling weapons to the FBI, Pentagon, and the department of homeland security.

Greenpeace have come out with both guns blazing and called for the deportation of the former intelligence officer, Louis - Pierre Dillais, who now has an extremely sensitive nature to his relationship with the US Government.

The despicable attack on the Greenpeace research vessel, engineered by the French intelligence services brought widespread criticism of the French Government of the time and rightly so! It created an international incident with the small Pacific nation of New Zealand - one of France's allies. A Portuguese crew member of the RAINBOW WARRIOR was trapped below deck and killed by the explosions that sank the vessel in peace time - in point of fact he was murdered.

Two of the French agents responsible for actually setting the explosive charges - limpet mines, in an act of terrorism - the actual saboteurs, were captured, imprisoned waiting for trial, sentenced firstly in a New Zealand prison, and after negotiations with the New Zealand Government, transferred to a French Polynesian territory prison. France compensated the NZ Government, but renegued on their agreement that the two agents would serve out their terms, instead the agents were brought back to France within a very short period of time.

However, Dillais, an operative or the French intelligence service, the DGSE, while being identified by French media reports as the man who commanded the mission to attack the RAINBOW WARRIOR, was never brought to trial. Why? The two agents were the scapegoats!

Dillais was reportedly a Lieutenant Colonel in the French military and a former director of their underwater combat training based on the island of Corsica; he reportedly led the team of divers who placed limpet mines on the ship's hull. He is now employed as an executive in the US subsidiary of a Belgian arme manufacturer, FN Herstal.

According to reports in the company's website and industry publications, FN Herstal and its US subsidiary supply combat assault rifles to the Pentagon, handguns to the secret service, and sniper rifles to the FBI. The company also produces an underwater machinegun, and provides equipment to various police departments across the US.

It has been alleged that the subsidiary alone turned over nearly US$2.5 million of business in federal contacts in 2005, according to the FedSpending.org website - but only $93,000 was fully competitive. You might say that they are very serious in their business transactions.

But, however, Greenpeace have tracked Dillais to Virginia, where the CIA headquarters is based, and has launched a campaign demanding that the US authorities explain why he, Dillais, was permitted to enter the US. The New Zealand Government will undoubtably be maintaining a watching brief on the proceedings.

Greenpeace allegedly wrote to to the US department of homeland security last year(2006) and demanded Dillais's deportation - it obviously didn't happen because there are undoubtably other aliens resident in the US with dubious backgrounds.

The US Immigration Regulations usually bar people who have been convicted of violent crime, or are clearly linked to acts of terrorism.

New Zealand may have officially forgiven that despicable attack on The Greenpeace vessel, RAINBOW WARRIOR, in New Zealand waters on July 11,1985, but we have never forgotten it. Perhaps it is silently remembered when New Zealand's champion rugby team take the field to do battle with its French counterparts. Who knows?

Surely the US Government should be setting much higher standards on the people it wishes to do business with, especially in matters of defence. They should fully research the backgrounds of aliens who will be conducting business within the confines of the US - what other dubious characters are involved in the arms business in the US. Some with distinct Serbian or South African accents, maybe?